94 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 



sails ;— but extracts from their own simple narrative are the 

 most touching record I can give you of their fate : — 



"The 26th of August, our fleet set sail for Holland with 

 a strong north-east w ? ind, and a hollow sea, which continued 

 all that night. The 28th, the wind the same ; it began to 

 snow very hard ; we then shared half a pound of tobacco 

 betwixt us, which was to be our allowance for a week. To- 

 wards evening we went about together, to see whether we 

 could discover anything worth our observation ; but met 

 with nothing." And so on for many a weary day of sleet 

 and storm. 



On the 8th of September they "were frightened by a 

 noise of something falling to the ground," — probably some 

 volcanic disturbance. A month later, it becomes so cold 

 that their linen, after a moment's exposure to the air, be- 

 comes frozen like a board. Huge fleets of ice beleaguered 

 the island, the sun disappears, and they spend most of their 

 time in " rehearsing to one another the adventures that had 

 befallen them both by sea and land/' On the 12th of 

 December they kill a bear, having already begun to feel the 

 effects of a salt diet. At last comes New Year's Day, 1636. 

 "After having wished each other a happy new year, and 

 success in our enterprise, we went to prayers, to disburthen 

 our hearts before God." On the 25th of February (the very 

 day on which Wallenstein was murdered) the sun reappeared. 

 By the 22nd of March scurvy had already declared itself: 

 " For want of refreshments we began to be very heartless, 

 and so afflicted that our legs are scarce able to bear us." 

 On the 3rd of April, " there being no more than two of us in 



2 The climate, however, does not appear to have been then so incle- 

 ment in these latitudes as it has since become. A similar deterioration 

 in the temperature, both of Spitzbergen and Greenland, has also been 

 observed. In Iceland we have undoubted evidence of corn having been 

 formerly grown, as well as of the existence of timber of considerable 

 size, though now it can scarcely produce a cabbage, or a stunted shrub of 

 birch. M. Babinet, of the French Institute, goes a little too far when 

 he says, in the Journal des D'ebats of the 30th December, 1S56, that for 

 many years Jan Mayen has been inaccessible. 



